I feel pretty confident that that is not a new thing.

People (including those of us making this observation probably) have always been dumber than people want to believe.

I'd also point out most of us in my experience only engage recursive thinking sporadically. I'll spend hours thinking about a book, but I don't think about a song for more than a 3-4 minutes it takes to play. I'll bet the farmer down the road is way more introspective about farming than I'll ever be.